The following information replicates the core information given to potential contributors when we were developing the first phase of this project; it is supplied here to enable you to reflect upon the nature of the brief, and how it might have impacted on the material produced.

Initial Recruitment

Experts-by-Experience in "Mental Health" - We Need Your Voices!

Thank you for following this up!

I am a clinical psychologist, and a lecturer in the Department of Psycholgy at Nottingham Trent University, UK. I teach on a range of courses, and most of my teaching is related to some expect of "mental health" or "distress" (if you want to know more about me before you proceed, please do look at my profile on this link). This includes thinking about the nature of the experiences themselves, and also the ways in which our society understands and tries to support people with such experiences.

I believe that it is ethically vital that students' learning around this topic is informed not only by academic literature and service-based documents, but also by a direct understanding of people's experiences when they have encountered the kinds of difficulties which can lead to a "mental health service" (for the rest of this project, I will refer to such people as "Experts-By-Experience"). However, whilst there are many examples of people giving their individual accounts online, it is much harder for me as a lecturer to coordinate these into a cohesive learning experience for my students. There is then a danger that students don't immerse themselves fully in a direct understanding of such accounts.

I am now looking to create a small collection of accounts - recorded directly by experts-by-experience - which will both allow for an authentic account of such experiences, whilst also being manageable for use in a higher education teaching environment. We will pay a fee (£90, subject to certain terms and conditions) to each expert-by-experience contributor who takes part. In return for this fee, each contributor will provide 6 x five-ten minute videos; five will be recorded in response to an open-ended question which has been identified by my students and lecturing colleagues, with a sixth video which is entirely open to the contributor's preference.

To be a contributor, the following needs to be true:

1. You already have direct personal experience of recording and publishing material about your experiences of distress / "mental health" in the past.
2. You are prepared to agree to all of the conditions set out in a consent form, which will be displayed to you on the next page.
3. You are a UK resident, at least 18 years old
4. You agree to take your own responsibility for any tax liabilities or affects to welfare which may be incurred through receipt of this fee. For an overview of how this may affect your Tax or Benefits, please look at the following link

Editorial Control

If you take part in this project, we want to have an authentic account of your own experiences and thoughts in your own voice. We are not intending to edit your responses, other than potentially adding some minor detail about the university. As such, we would like you to take part provided that you are confident you can keep your responses within the time frame of five-ten minutes per video. Additionally, we would ask that you avoid naming specific services or individuals in your accounts.

If you are interested to hear more, please click on the button below. The first page you see will show you the consent form which you will be required to sign. If you are not happy with the terms of this form, then I thank you for your time in following this up, but I'm afraid we will not be able to proceed further. If you think that you could agree to the terms (you do not have to sign up to anything yet), then you will have the option to proceed to one more page. Here, I will ask you for details about your previous recordings, some personal details, and also for your thoughts about questions that you would like to answer. I will also ask for your contact details.

I need to have all people interested in contributing to have let me know by 9am, Thursday 29th June. At this point, I will be reviewing all the offers received. I only have a limited budget, and so unfortunately I can only ask five people to proceed with making the videos for us. I will be trying to have a range of people, in terms of age, gender, cultural background, sexuality, nature of distress, types of support accessed, and so on - it is important for my students to understand the diversity of experiences which people are faced with in these circumstances.

I will be letting you know by Friday 30th June whether I will be asking you to proceed or not.

If you want to know more, please click on the button below.

Consent Form

In consideration of a fee of £90 (inclusive of VAT if applicable), you have agreed to provide to the University new Vlogs (“Recording”) in accordance with the Recording brief below.

Recording Brief

The University will provide you with a list of questions, some of which will be definitely required, and some of which will be optional for you. You will then create six separate Recording(s), one for each of the questions, and each Recording to be of five to ten minutes in duration. Each Recording must be focussed on the topic of each question selected by you and be suitable for use within a lecture. The University will then use each Recording in accordance with the Purposes set out below. Please note that each recording will be available to view by the general public.

Data Protection

Nottingham Trent University is a “Data Controller” for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998. As the Recording(s) contain personal data, the University will process this personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Act, and only for the following Purposes, both within the United Kingdom and internationally:

· Available online on a channel hosted on YouTube (this channel to be overseen by a YouTube user affiliated to NTU Psychology);

· Available online on the University’s website, available to students, staff, future students and the public;

· Available to students and staff (including visiting students and staff) on the University’s virtual learning environment (NOW) and being used for teaching and research;

· Being held by the University on its servers.

Please note that websites can be viewed throughout the world, not just in the United Kingdom where UK law applies.

The University will not include details or full names (first name and surname) of any person in a Recording, personal email or postal addresses, or telephone or fax numbers on our website, or in printed publications.

Declaration

I hereby grant consent to the University to use the Recording for the Purposes in accordance with this Agreement. I understand that I may withdraw my consent up until I have received payment of the fee.

I understand that I will retain ownerships rights in the Recording(s) but am required to grant limited licence rights to the University for the Purposes. I represent and warrant that I have and will continue to have during the Purposes all necessary licences, rights, consents and permission required to enable the University to use the Recordings for the Purposes.

In consideration of the fee I hereby grant to the University a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable licence (with right to sub-licence) to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display and perform the Recording(s) in connection with the Purposes.

I confirm that where material is included in the Recording(s) which is the intellectual property, including copyright, of another party, I have permission to include the materials in my Recording and can evidence such permission if required. I understand that in the event the University is notified by the owner of the copyright that such permission has not been granted, the University will remove the subject material. I agree to indemnify the University from any and all claims made by owners of any third party rights which I infringe in the course of my Recording(s).

I understand that personal information about me, which I reveal in the Recording, may be publicly available worldwide and as such I understand to exercise a degree of caution in choosing what to say about myself in the Recording.

I understand that payment of the fee is subject to the University reviewing the content of the Recording and approving the Recording as fit for the Purposes.

I confirm that I will not include personal information relating to third parties in the Recording. In the event that personal information of a third party is included in the Recording, the University reserves the right to reject the Recording as not fit for the Purposes and allow me to reproduce the Recording with guidance from the University.

I, the undersigned, consent to the use of my personal data being processed for the Purposes of the Recording(s) and subsequent publishing.

My personal data will be processed in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998. I understand that my image and/or Recordings will be used for the Purposes only and that copyright in the Recording(s) will be retained by the University.

Video Briefing

We are looking for six pieces of material of 5-10 minutes in your own words and style. We will not be editing anything ourselves, other than potentially adding a little bit of text or a hyperlink at certain points (e.g. to bookend the videos), and so please do not go too long and leave it to me to choose what to cut. Our whole intention here is to have an authentic voice, and as soon as an academic starts to decide what bit is relevant or not, it loses that authenticity. These are intended for a young adult audience, so we’re not going to censor for things like profanity if it genuinely represents your own choice of language – however, do be mindful that we will have to be careful about using anything that is saturated with such language. Also please be mindful of making reference to named individuals or organisations, as we would not want to inadvertently lead to offence or upset from publishing these; for example, if possible, please refer to “the service”, “the nurse”, “the doctor” etc.

If you want to simply produce a 5-10 minute monologue recorded from a webcam, then we are very happy to receive it. Equally, if you did want to do anything slightly different in creation, then please feel free to do so. All I would suggest is that you start the video with a line like “I’m recording this in response to the question…” and then let your response flow! Please don’t be constrained by trying to be academic in your response; we know that it’s impossible to not be thinking about the people likely to be watching, but we genuinely just want you to tell us your truth based on what we have asked you.

Based on interest from contributors, and also relevance to teaching, all five of our contributors are being asked to record separate responses to each of the following questions:

· How would you describe in your own words your "mental health problem", or experiences of distress?

· Has anything particularly helped you or made things worse along the way?*

· What has your experience of accessing and engaging with any "mental health" services been like?

· What advice would you give to a psychologist trying to help someone with your kind of experiences?

The fifth video can be any one of this following list that you would like to respond to.

· How has gender affected your experiences of mental health?

· What are your thoughts on the concept of "recovery" from experiences like yours?

· Do you think that distress and "mental health" can be understood in a medical way?

· What other support or help do you think could have helped you to manage life differently?

· Do you think that mental health can be apolitical?

The final video can be anything that you want it to be. If that seems too open, then do choose instead another of the questions above to respond to (but honestly, if there is another burning topic that you want to make sure is covered, then please do freestyle that).